dj bean

NHL moving on from Olympics would be silly

The coming months will tell us whether the NHL's days of sending players to the Olympics are over for the time being. If the owners get their way and cut off the NHL/Olympic connection, it will be just another bad move from a group that’s had no trouble making bad decisions for its league over the years.

Aside from the obvious perk of increased exposure, the pros for continuing the NHL's Olymipcs relationship are obvious: The league gets its 82 games and all the money that comes with it, while the players get to represent their countries in a tournament that means a lot to them. Plus, NBC wants NHL players in the Olympics and they're the league's rights holders in the USA for the next seven years.

Of course, there is pause on the part of the owners. They don't want a stoppage (yes, that's hilarious) in the middle of the season, they don't like the idea of their players risking injury and, as Bruins owner Jeremy Jacobs explained to the New York Times, having a compressed schedule (like the league had last season because of the lockout and this season because of the Olympics) means it's tougher for the arenas in which the teams play to schedule concerts or games for other teams that might occupy the buildings.

The owners' concern there is fair, but considering it's once every four years and benefits both its players and broadcast partners, it would be a shame to see a good thing end at the hands of a group that has already made itself look like the bad guys too often over the years.

There's been talk of bringing back the hockey World Cup, which could be played during the preseason to avoid the break in February. That wouldn't have the same impact as Olympic hockey for the average person for two reasons. First of all, it isn't the Olympics, a sporting event that non-sports fans watch. A World Cup tournament wouldn’t get the attention it gets in soccer, as soccer is the most popular sport in the world and hockey isn’t. Not even close.

Then there's the whole John Tavares thing. Yes, players get hurt during the Olympics, but Garth Snow's rant against the Olympics sounds more like the general manager of a last-place team looking for somebody else to blame for what will certainly finish as a disastrous season.

“Are the [International Olympic Committee or International Ice Hockey Federation] going to reimburse our season-ticket holders now?” Snow said following Tavares' season-ending knee injury suffered playing for Team Canada. “It’s a joke. They want all the benefits from NHL players in Olympics and don’t want to pay when our best player gets hurt.”

That's dumb for many reasons, but let's pick the two obvious ones: Would the Islanders reimburse season-ticket holders if Tavares were to suffer the injury in a game or a practice? No, and it isn't like the Islanders have to pay for Tavares now anyway. The IIHF and IOC paid for contract insurance for all the NHL players before the Olympics, so the insurance policy will pay for the rest of Tavares' salary this season. There's no way Snow didn't know that when he made those comments.

On Monday, both Zdeno Chara and David Krejci expressed their desire to play in the Olympics again. A three-time Olympian, Chara is 36 years old, so if he were to go to Pyeongchang, it would almost certainly be his last time in the Olympics. He hopes that this year's showing in which the Slovakia team he captained finished 11th wasn't his last.

"You have to take advantage of the experience," Chara said after noting that he prefers that NHL players continue to participate. "You never know when you're going to be able to either go or Slovakia's going to be able to qualify, so yeah, it could have been possibly the last one, so you want to make the best of it."

On the Czech Republic’s end, the 2018 Olympics would provide an opportunity for Krejci to really become the face of his country's team given that Jaromir Jagr will be out of the picture. Obviously that won't happen if NHL players aren't allowed to go.

"I would love if the NHL would be OK with that. It's a great event," Krejci said. "It's pretty special for hockey to go there and represent your country, and it happens only once every four years. I hope and I wish the NHL players would continue and go along with it."

Locally, the USA is expected to continue to be a major contender despite not medaling in Sochi. It still has a young team (it had only three players 30 or older), and players like Phil Kessel, Patrick Kane and Jonathan Quick will be further into their primes in 2018, while a promising youngster like North Chelmsford native Jack Eichel (eligible to be drafted in 2015 and likely the Tyler to Connor McDavid’s Taylor as draft 1-2 punches go) could be an Olympic-caliber player by then.

All things considered, the NHL has a good thing with its players going to the Olympics, and the players don’t want that to change. It would be a shame if it did.

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